Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Glass Christmas Trees ... A New Paperweight!!

I saw an exciting photo of glass Christmas trees made of square glass pieces and decided to try to make this project. My son had given me a stack of thicker glass shelves that would be perfect, and I had a box full of scraps I could cut into different size squares. Here is the photo that inspired me. Aren't the trees simply beautiful?!!

I made two and used a dab of super glue between each piece to hold the trees together. Then let the trees dry for a day. I put each in the kiln on its piece of fiber paper and programmed the kiln to the temperature I would use for slumping, as I didn't know how hot it should fire. But I just wanted it to stick together and have the sharp edges round out. The kiln was set and turned on.

I came out to check it at 1100 deg. and was shocked to find one tree had fallen over and the glass pieces had separated on and off the fiber paper. The other tree was still standing. I got my long raku glove and kitchen tongs and picked up the fallen pieces. I placed them on a small kiln shelf and some pieces cracked immediately when hitting that cold shelf. But I didn't want the fallen pieces to remain in the kiln and fuse together, so they had to be removed from the kiln.

Later when the kiln had completed its firing, I looked inside and here is what I found:

I have myself a great paperweight! Surprisingly, the tree had held together, had slowly leaned over ... and the edges were nice and rounded. Having used this kiln for years, I had never checked the top shelf with a level, but that's the reason the trees fell over .... The kiln is not level. I'll take a day or so to regroup, level the kiln, cut more squares, and try this project again.

5 comments:

I leveled the shelf and tried two more, but they started to bend too. So now there are three unusual trees! But they look good together. I contacted the artist who did the trees. He came back and said my way would not work. He uses UV adhesive and a black light. I just don't want to give up on my way yet, but have not tried again. Thanks for your interest and I hope you try this. Let me know what happens. I may try a slower firing next. I'll post a photo of the three trees soon. I want to glue a red bead on each tree top first. Ha.

Hi Melissa, I have not tried re-firing these trees yet, but you have reminded me to put them on my projects list!!! I'll first fire them in two pieces so the edges round out. Then why couldn't I put the pieces together and fire at a lower temperature so they would just tack fuse together? What do you think? If that doesn't work, then as a last resort use glue on the two fired pieces.Thanks so much for your interest and suggestions.